


Side Glances and Spare Change

by semperpugnandi



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Korrasami - Freeform, Laundry AU, and awkward bambeanos, and them being dorks, is laundry au even a thing?, this is just pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 13:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12558872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperpugnandi/pseuds/semperpugnandi
Summary: There are several reasons Korra does her laundry promptly every Thursday night. One reason is because she is a mature responsible adult. Another reason is because of the really cute girl who also does laundry at that time.





	Side Glances and Spare Change

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I know I promised a sequel to WSLSBUWWF (and I SWEAR I'm working on it, it's just much longer than I thought it'd be), but I had this idea of these dorks doing their laundry together, and well, this just happened.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Move! I’m going to be late!”

Mako frowned as he watched Korra frantically rush around the dorm room wildly throwing clothes into a pile. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned to Bolin who was watching amusedly at the disastrous scene playing out before them. He was definitely missing something.

“What’s she going to be late for?” he asked confused. Bolin ripped his eyes off of the scene at play, jumping gratefully at any chance he had to tease his best friend.

“Laundry girl,” Bolin replied with a smug smile. The crease in Mako’s forehead deepened, still not understanding the issue at hand. Korra let out a frustrated grunt at the other end of the room, but couldn’t fight Bolin on what he was about to say. “You know how Korra’s kind of a disaster and never really used to do functional things, such as her laundry?” Bolin continued, prompting a nod from his brother.

At this Korra paused her frantic gathering of clothes to scowl at her friend. “Hey, you still don’t do your laundry, so I don’t know why your making fun of me when I’ve become more responsible from this whole thing,” she shot back, clear annoyance written on her face which increased as she watched Bolin roll his eyes. She opened her mouth to protest again, but was cut off.

“She does her laundry to get laid,” Bolin explained, as if that would make everything click in Mako’s head. Unfortunately all it got him was a further baffled brother and pair of jeans in the face.

“I do not!” Korra cried as she scooped her large pile of clothes into her basket and kicked it to the middle of the room. Sighing, she turned and addressed Mako herself. “I noticed there’s a cute girl who does her laundry every Thursday evening at ten, and so I now do my laundry every Thursday at ten.”

Mako stared at her, mouth hanging slightly open. After a beat passed and he realized she was being serious, he began doubling over in laughter, Bolin soon joining him.

“Seriously Korra?” Mako managed to breathe out.

Huffing, Korra marched over to Bolin, picked up the jeans she threw at him earlier, and hit him with them again. “It’s not funny! It’s a completely rational thing to do!”

Still laughing slightly, Mako tried to take his friend seriously. “Have you talked to this really cute girl at all?” The smirk on his face irked Korra, but she tried to ignore it as she went to grab her detergent.

“Not yet,” she replied insecurely. “I just haven’t worked out what to say,” she rationalized, but the words still came out as a mumble, because she knew she would never know what to say to the gorgeous girl she occupied the laundry room with for two hours every week.

“How many weeks has this been happening?” Mako inquired.

Korra shrugged. “I don’t know. Like seven weeks or something like that.” She tried so hard to play off the number nonchalantly, but Mako began dying as soon as he heard it. Yeah, okay, seven weeks was a long time, but Korra stood by her actions, and these two fools would too if they had seen this girl.

Gritting her teeth at the boisterous laughter in her dorm room, Korra rolled her eyes and swung her bookbag on her back. Returning to the center of the room, she dutifully picked up her laundry basket, and said, “Yeah yeah see you in two hours douchebags.”

She shot them a mocking face sticking her tongue out at them and turned towards her door to leave when she heard Mako call out.

“Wait, wait,” he stopped her, a serious edge to his voice. Begrudgingly, she turned back around and raised her eyebrows at him. “Why do you have your bookbag with you?” As innocent and serious as the question was, Korra felt her cheeks immediately heat up at Bolin’s outburst of laughter in response.

“That’s the best part!” Bolin exclaimed between laughs. “She stays down there while her laundry’s going to do homework with this girl.”

Upon hearing this, Mako also began dying laughing again, and Korra--deciding she had had enough of this for one day--huffed and pointedly left the room, slamming the door behind her.

She had expected as much of a response from her best friends, but it still got under her skin a little. Sure, it may seem a bit intense to sit with this girl she’d never talked to before every week for two hours and there were a lot of times Korra almost convinced herself to give it up, but the boys never witnessed her and the mystery girl. The way the girl’s peridot eyes lit up every time Korra walked in the room, or the soft smirk she shot Korra every time she caught her staring.

She was drawn to this girl. It just felt… right. To be in each others presence. If Korra believed in such a thing as fate, she might be inclined to even call this that. Either fate or being an idiotic hopeless romantic.

The elevator down to the laundry room seemed to move at its slowest possible speed, allowing a rush of adrenaline and nerves to build up in the tribal girl as she anxiously awaited to arrive in the basement of the dorm. As the doors pinged and opened, she fought her instinct to sprint around the corner. Instead she managed a mildly believable, nonchalant stroll into the laundry room, but her body was wound tight as a spring and was buzzing.

As soon as she entered the room, she noticed the subject of interest putting quarters into her washing machine to start her first load. Korra bit her cheek as she tried to keep herself from smiling, which of course just turned her expression into a pained smirk as the girl looked up at her, noticing the movement at the door.

At first her expression was guarded, but as soon as she recognized the other occupant as her regular company, the laundry girl shot Korra a genuine smile and unconsciously showed a bit of relief in her eyes.

Korra sat her basket down a few machines away from the other girl’s and began loading her clothes.

“I was starting to think I’d scared you off.”

The voice startled Korra and she looked up in alarm at the laundry girl. She wasn’t looking at Korra and was keeping a passive expression on her face, but feeling Korra’s stare, she looked up innocently and the corners of her lips turned up in a mischievous smirk.

For a moment, Korra stared at her like a deer in the headlights, voice stuck useless in her throat. But regaining cognitive function, she cleared her throat and smiled.

“You would have to do a lot more to scare me off,” she retorted, and immediately felt her face flush. She had not come into this laundry room tonight with the intention of talking to her mystery girl, let only flirt with her. Ducking her head one again to finish loading her machine, Korra chastised herself for being so forward.

A beat of silence passed before the girl spoke again. “Not easily scared then?” she prompted, her smirk growing into a wicked grin, her eyes lighting up that this girl was going along with the banter.

Korra glanced over at the girl quickly and then averted her eyes again and shrugged. “I’m a regular consumer of Halloweentown, if that’s what your asking.”

The laughter that filled the room made Korra’s heart rate spike. She struggled to maintain a straight face as she attempted not to dwell on the fact that after hearing this girl laugh once she already knew it was one of her favorite sounds. Instead she looked up and relented a dopey smile.

When the girl was able to regain her breath, she shot Korra a dazzling smile. “I’m Asami,” she introduced herself. And Korra’s heart gave a little squeeze that she could finally put a name to her beautiful mystery girl.

“Korra,” she responded, unable to keep the wide grin from her face as she put her quarters in her machine to start it.

When Asami noticed Korra had started washing her clothes, she led them back over to the wide table on the other end of the room where they both usually set up their silent camp for two hours. But it seemed as though Asami had other plans for tonight, and who was Korra to go against them?

“Well, Korra, I’m glad you’re not easily scared because otherwise what I’m about to pull out of my bookbag may have sent you running for the hills,” Asami teased as they sat down. Korra shot her a questioning but amused look as Asami held her eyes pointedly and dramatically. Still holding the tribal girl’s eyes, she blindly reached down into her bag and extravagantly pulled out a textbook. “Physical chemistry,” she announced, allowing the book to drop unceremoniously on the table.

Korra visibly cringed at the thought of ever having to take such a depressing class, which earned a small chortle from the girl beside her. “Spirits, what do you need to take that for?” Korra asked with a scrunched face as Asami opened the book and began flipping through the pages to find the section she needed.

Glancing up and shooting Korra a soft grin, Asami responded, “Engineering, unfortunately.”

Korra let out a low whistle and furrowed her eyebrows in sympathy. “I have two friends in engineering, and it seems like hell,” she commented, pulling out her own books.

“Oh no, it’s not hell,” Asami replied absently as she continued to flip through her book. Then she looked up at her companion innocently. “Hell isn’t sexist.”

The laughter overtook Korra immediately, and Asami gazed at her with an endearing smile, proud of her joke. Between the heaves of laughter, Korra managed to meet the engineer’s eyes and a tiny part of her was in disbelief this was happening at all. She was sitting there, talking to the beautiful laundry girl, and not only was she incredibly smart, but she also was funny. So what was the catch?

A horrifying thought crossed her mind that she’d tried to remind herself of throughout the past seven weeks that she had conveniently been forgetting this entire conversation: Asami could very well be straight.

Grimacing and pushing the thought from her head, she managed to sober up a bit, but kept her uncontrollably large grin. Asami had ceased searching through her textbook and Korra’s books sat unopened and neglected on the table.

“So what’s your personal hell at this university?” she asked with laughter tinging her voice.

Korra held up her Earth Science textbook in dismay. “Environmental Science,” she responded with a grimace.

Noting her expression, Asami raised her eyebrows curiously. “Is it hard?” she inquired.

Unsure of how to respond, the tribal girl shrugged. “Not hard, just… terrifying?” she tried to explain, and was grateful when Asami’s expression immediately related she understood what she was saying. It was hard to study that the world was slowly destroying itself and not doing anything about it.

After a beat of silence, Asami looked up with a shy smirk. “At least we have people like you who aren’t easily scared.”

Korra gave her a grateful look and then both girls began looking through their books to begin studying. The time passed quicker than usual now that the girls were a bit more comfortable with each other than in previous weeks. They both looked up a bit shocked when they heard Asami’s timer go off.

She grabbed her wallet and made her way over to her washing machine. After transferring all her clothes over to a dryer, she walked over to the coin machine, and Korra regrettably took her in from afar. She didn’t think she’d ever not be in awe of Asami’s beauty.

“Shit,” Asami whispered loudly as the machine wouldn’t accept her dollar. Sometimes the change machine could be picky like that. Gritting her teeth and huffing, the engineer hopelessly kept trying to force the machine to accept her money.

Impulsively, Korra grabbed her coin pouch and jumped up.

“I can spot you some quarters if the machine’s being shitty,” she offered, not processing what she was doing yet.

Asami turned around surprised at the offer. Biting her lip, averting her eyes and smiling, she shook her head. “No no, you don’t have to do that. I have coins in my bookbag, I just was too lazy to search for them,” she responded, but Korra was already this far and couldn’t turn back now.

“No really, I insist,” she continued with a giant infectious smile. “It’s no big deal, I’ll just spot you.”

Considering her for a moment, Asami finally relented. “Okay,” she allowed, her voice coming out really small as she tried not to internally freak out. Korra smiled satisfied and bounced over to her dryer. She inserted all the coins and then backed away so Asami could start her machine.

By the time the whole thing was said and done, Korra’s washing machine beeped, signalling its end. She resisted the urge to dance over to the machine, feeling completely emboldened by the fact she had just chivalrously paid for Asami’s dryer. As she pulled an armload of clothes out of the washer and dropped them in a dryer, she pondered why she had ever been so nervous about talking or flirting with the girl at all. She had obviously done both tonight, and everything was going so well.

Smiling satisfiedly, she racked her brain for topics she could bring up for the next hour, wanting to be prepared for an actual conversation, not just banter. She dropped the rest of her clothes in her dryer and shut the door. Pulling her wallet out of her back pocket, she wondered if favorite restaurant was an appropriate first day of talking topic. If Korra was ever going to become bold enough to ask Asami on a date, she would want to know where to-

Her heart stopped.

Looking down into her wallet pouch, Korra could feel herself freeze. She struggled to breathe and resisted banging her head against the dryer.

This could not be happening.

In her pouch was three quarters. The machine in front of her required five. She bite her lip instead of groaning, but she really couldn’t believe she had been that ignorant. She should have counted to make sure she had enough quarters to pay for both her and Asami’s dryers before she became the knight and shining armor. What was she going to do?

A thought passed through her head that she could just ask Asami for two quarters, because she had said she had some. But the thought of having to ask Asami for quarters after she just gave Asami quarters panicked her. She under no circumstance would lose that much of her pride to such an embarrassing circumstance.

Her next thought was to grab her sopping wet clothes and run. But there was no way she could carry all of her clothes at once and if she went back over to where her clothes basket was sitting, that would defeat the purpose of running.

Then she thought maybe she could just run up to her room quickly, but that would cause a lot of suspicion, and-

An idea hit her and she whipped out her phone.

Korra: [If you love me you’ll come bring me two quarters right now.]

She waited anxiously for the almost immediate response.

Bolin: [Why?]

She huffed and typed, trying to avoid an actual explanation.

Korra: [Because I only have three.]

Bolin: [Can’t you ask laundry girl for some quarters?]

Korra: [No.]

Bolin: [?]

Korra grimaced realizing she would after all have to explain the precarious situation she was in.

Korra: [I kind of paid for her dryer despite her having quarters. Seemed like a good idea at the time.]

Korra waited several beats for a response, but none came. She waited a little while longer, thinking maybe he was just typing a long response. And still, nothing came. Realizing he probably wasn’t responding because he was laughing, Korra huffed again and began typing an angry message.

“Korra?” Asami asked from across the room. The voice startled Korra, and she jumped and slammed her body into the dryer, quickly putting down her phone. The engineer furrowed her eyebrows and looked pointedly at Korra’s still unpaid dryer. “Everything okay?” 

“Yeah!” Korra responded a little too high pitch and eagerly, which caused Asami to become even more suspicious. So Korra tried to rectify her suspicion with rambling. “Just looking up what setting’s the best for my clothes. You know, trying to make them last longer and all.” Her smile was strained as she played it off, but Asami’s confused expression just became more confused with a slight addition of amusement.

“There’s only two settings on these dryers, Korra,” she pointed out, she trying to figure out why her new companion was acting so strangely.

Heat rushed to Korra’s face as she looked over at the dryer. “Oh, ha! Silly me. I guess I’ll just go with the high setting then.” Instinctively, Korra pressed the button and somehow wished it was a button to eject herself into the sun.

Asami was silent for a minute as she watched Korra hold her finger cringing on a dryer setting. “You have to pay for it first.” Something weird was definitely going on.

“Oh right!” Korra agreed, and her hand shakily pulled out her wallet again. Unsure of what else to do, she tried to casually put her three quarters in the machine and then stopped and stared at her wallet for a moment. Then snapping it shut, she turned and faced Asami, trying to still act confidently because maybe Asami developed amnesia in the past five minutes and would forget she had paid for her dryer. “I--uh--seem to be short two quarters. Any chance you could spot me?”

Asami stared at the girl blankly for several beats, trying to grasp what Korra had just asked her. Her eyes searched the tribal girl’s face, looking for some kind of sign that this was a joke. But finding none, she raised her hand to her mouth.

“Oh my spirits,” she murmured, before her face cracked into a fit of laughter. She doubled over and had tears streaming down her face before long, while Korra stood helplessly cringing and looking for any escape from this situation. Asami tried to speak through her laughter. “I can’t… you just… you paid for… and then… and now… you’re so cute.” 

Through her struggle to speak, Asami had made it back over to her bookbag and began searching for two more quarters. Korra stood staring at her trying to not dwell too much on the fact that Asami had just called her cute. Her. After being a complete idiot Asami still called her cute.

Blood rushing through her ears, Korra tried to still act semi confident with the whole situation, maybe feeling slightly encouraged by Asami’s comment. “Hey, I mean, technically, you owe me.”

At this Asami crumpled on top of her bookbag in a new round of laughter. This time Korra softly joined in and they both enjoyed the ridiculousness of the situation together for a moment.

A minute later and still laughing slightly, the engineer held up two quarters triumphantly. Walking over to Korra, she grinned mischievously and went to put the quarters in the machine, but pulled her hand back last minute and looked thoughtfully at Korra instead.

“There’s a condition on these quarters,” she announced dutifully, and Korra couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Oh come on, now we’ll be even,” she complained, wishing this whole thing was over with already.

Asami nodded slightly, but still held her hand back. “We will be, but I still have a seperate price on these quarters.”

“You can’t change the value of currency,” Korra retorted, which earned a slight chuckle.

“No, I can’t,” she agreed. “But I can add dinner.”

Korra’s eyes shot to hers, and she felt her heart drop. Trying to shake herself out of her daze, she tried to ask her what she meant, but Asami spoke up, with that confident smirk before Korra could say anything.

“Take me to dinner and these quarters are all yours,” she offered.

Korra stared at her, once again with her voice stuck in her throat, but found herself nodding eagerly in response anyways. “I- Yes. Yes of course,” she finally replied, finding her voice.

With a satisfied and excited smile, Asami dropped the two coins into the machine and sauntered back to their study table. Staring after her in disbelief, Korra ran her hand through her hair and let out a large breath.

Doing her laundry was the best decision she had ever made.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you guys thought!! <3 Thanks for reading.


End file.
